You think they going to do less than PS3 in Japan?

I truly believe the PS4 is going to sell like Gran Turismo sell. OK in NA, ok to bad in Japan, Terrific in Europe. 

I do not really have a prediction for next gen, just some observations.
MS cannot seem to control Japan.
Wii U seems to not be as big as Wii but who knows.
PS4 will not have the home media player like ps3 with blu ray.
3rd Party support could swing either way.
Kinect effect has been used, I do not think kinect 2.0 can replicate the effect for Xbox 720. So they might go for something completely new.
Japanese companies seem to be in financial problems, so their might be more western games then last gen.

With all that said it is unclear to me who might win, if PS4 or 720 have something groundbreaking like the Wii then they would probably win but it seems unlikely atm.

Predictions at this point are worthless. Who could have expected that Sony would overtake Nintendo with the PSone? Who could have expected Sony to take a nose-dive with the PS3? Who could have expected Nintendo to change the market with the Wii? Point is, the ability to predict future generations is virtually impossible. Literally anything could happen. If anyone happens to be correct, then its purely the result of coincidence rather than predictive ability.

Microsoft has been a more successful publisher than Sony and have made better picks for 3rd party exclusivity. Though whether this will continue is debateable.

Microsft has a still viable motion controller whereas Nintendo has effectively abandoned theirs so they may have an advantage with parts of the casual market next generation. They also have the ability to mimmick many of Nintendo's own innovations with Smartglass. They have the option to expand Kinect into more than games with education and shopping also potentially being killer apps.

Microsoft likely has a more loyal online userbase than Sony and Nintendo because many of the people whom joined up over competing services did so because of better social services like party chat, teaming up, and good voice communication so having friends on  the service is likely more important. Since it is easier to play with friends on Live the people who value it are the ones whom want to play with friends vs those who just want to play against anyone/randoms.

Microsoft has a lot more money than Sony and a greater willingness to spend it than Nintendo. Microsoft is taking a beating on their home front of Windows because of the encroachment of Android and Apple which makes the EDD or whatever they call it nowadays an important segment of their business as it contains their hardware, mobile and console elements which are all very important growth areas both in terms of bolstering the Windows part of the business and in expanding into new areas. They have every incentive to give as many resources as possible to this division. They have the nasty combination of incentive and ability.

America - MS > Ninty >= Sony

Europe - Sony > Ninty > MS

Japan - Ninty >= Sony > MS

Elsewhere - Sony > Ninty >= MS

America will be held by MS quite easily, cutting into the Ninty share. They will drop and be around the same level as Sony.

Europe wont be close. Sony will take a large chunk of the Ninty share and MS share. Ninty's brand strength will still be too big for MS to compete.

Japan will be a lot closer. Sony will totally take MS share and Ninty will lose some Wii strength.

Elsewhere will be business as usual for Sony, except this time they wont be launching at $600.

This is extremely rough and not to be taken seriously in 5 Years time

More like this I'd say...

America - MS > Ninty >= Sony

Europe - Sony >= MS > Ninty

Japan - Ninty > Sony > MS

Elsewhere - Sony >= MS >= Ninty

Everything you just said works in two countries.

 Kinect: It went from the fastest selling product to a non issue. And it sold most of it in the US.

Live: It lost the reason for paying for it years ago. People have moved on from way more popular social network (MySpace), this is nothing.

As far as marketing, big launches won't win generation. 

I wont be doing the percentages so yea..

I also don't have a clue how Ninty will do when the others arrive so i will just say this

if PS4 launches at $400 in 2013 then MS wont have a chance in the world to win over Sony.

If Sony AND MS launch at $400 then MS just lost all there chances.

The rumor is that MS's console is more powerful so i expect it to cost more if anything

JAPAN: PS4 at $400 is going to sell better than what the PS3 sold at $600. It will be more consistent aswell. Sony gave MS all this room to do what they wanted when ps3 was $200 more and they didn't really move the needle that much there. I think PS4's numbers will be bigger than PS3's numbers at launch in Japan. They will be closer to what WII U's numbers are. The sales should boom and it should give more japanese devs faith in creating games for the PS home console again. I even think that all the jrpgs on Wii would have sold better if they debuted on PS3 even though ps3 costed more and Wii left ps3 in the dust sales wise.

honestly, Japans absence this gen on consoles is Sony's fault imo. If ps3 BOOMED in the sales department, then the whole japanese gaming scene would be a lot different right now.

PS4 is going to do better than what PS3 did in Japan.

They just need to launch this bitch at an affordable enough price($399) then it should be a better overall gen for the japanese side of things. PS4 wont have this "expensive ass console" image stuck to it like the ps3.

Wii U and PS4 will sell a lot closer than how Wii and PS3 sold to each other. Wii U has the year start over ps4 though so i dont know what to say about that.


European territory: PS4 should also do BETTER in europe than what PS3 did. simply because of the price. more games will sell better early on aswell. I dont see anything that MS could possibly do to be effective here this time around. MS wont have a year start to establish it's name and it's library over the competition, They also wont wont have its main competitor launch a year later at a significantly higher price than it aswell.

PS4 will sell better than what PS3 sold here and the ps4 will have a WIDER gap over 720 than what ps3 had over 360 here


America: I still dont know how Wii U is going to do when the other consoles arrive so yea...

PS4 sales will be a lot closer to 720's than what ps3's sales were to the 360's. 720 wont have a year early start to establish it's library over the competition. everybody IS NOT going to just jump on Xbox Live subscription like they did in the 7th because they will actually have a decent alternative to choose that WONT be $200 higher. PS4'S online should be easily comparable to Xbox Live this time around. It wont be a great online compared to a garbage online with a higher price.

PS4's gap between 720's will be closer than ps3's gap between 360. MS should still stay ahead of Sony here though because they have Halo.


Sony has to launch the PS4 at $400 in 2013 for this to happen though. If PS4 AND MS are both launch at $400 in 2013... Xbox's little reign over PS is over..


I will be making a thread comparing the PS4's 1st 12 week sales to PS3's sales in 2013 when it launches. I think the PS4 will be the only console to do significantly BETTER than what it's successor did out of the big 3

;)

Kinect is still important because it is still selling. If people still want to buy Kinect then Kinect 2.0 ought to be a reasonably viable choice as well. It is something unique and likely as valuable at the moment to Microsoft as the Halo franchise if not more so given the slight decline in the fortunes of Halo over the generation. They can solve the issues of the space requirement, finger tracking, 4 people tracking and reliability of voice/gestures with the march of technological progress. I think of Kinect as another important franchise like Wii Sports. It is something unique and therefore they can address an exclusive part of the market like for instance how Nintendo has a core fanbase who rabidly buys their titles.

I wouldn't say that everything applies to two countries. Just because Microsoft hasn't sold as well as Sony in say Europe doesn't mean that they won't sell a good number of consoles in that region. The Xbox 360 lead over the PS3 in the U.S.A is more significant than the deficit to the PS3 in Europe. We have Europe at 23-28M and U.S.A. at 38-23M respectively. The European market is also complicated further by the greater penetration of PC gaming and the Valve console if it ever releases is likely to be more successful there as well.

Overall I would say that Microsoft is my pick as the one to beat in the next generation because they are strong in some big markets and they have the money and experience now to expand to other nations as well.

next gen
45% Nintendo
35% Sony
20% Microsoft

I'm hoping for Microsoft to bomb.